1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in risks of information leakage. According to the investigation report on information security incidents in 2013 by Japan Network Security Association (JNSA), the rates of routes of information leakage include 67.7% of paper media and 16.4% of electronic mails and portable recording media (such as USB memories). Information leakage via paper media, e-mails and portable recording media occupies 84% of the whole, which is a significantly high percentage.
A technology applying digital watermarking to information security measures has been known as a technology of preventing information leakage. For example, Japanese Patent No. 4406589 discloses an invention of a network printing system configured to determine whether there is sniffing of print data by a sniffer between a user device and a printing apparatus.
The conventional technology however has difficulty in specifying users of a printed matter that is, for example, a paper medium with a print thereon and information contained in electronic data. When information leaks, it is difficult to specify the route of the information leakage.